Reveal Your Secrets To The Wind
by Jennifer Hart
Summary: “Grissom Collection Series.” An innocent remark made by Lindsey exposes one of Grissom’s longheld secrets. Grissom POV.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: Reveal Your Secrets To The Wind**

**Rating: PG**

**Spoilers: Nothing, but set June 2001 and with Holly alive and on the team instead of Sara. No romantic pairings.**

**Disclaimers: Right, I own them. Got them for Christmas last year. Just like I own a piece of land down in Florida for sale too (NOT!). However I did used to own Maggie. **

**Summary: "Grissom Collection Series." An innocent remark made by Lindsey exposes one of Grissom's long-held secrets. Grissom POV.**

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

For the live of me, I will never understand why the phone always has to ring when it's impossible to get to it on time to answer.

It's happened to me all my life. It's rung from one side of the room as I'm standing on the other with the floor in between completely blocked by papers I'm attempting to sort. It's rung while I was in the middle of an intricate experiment – the kind where I'd destroy the evidence if I attempted to answer. On one memorable occasion in college, I even heard it ring while I was standing over the toilet – caught in the grip of what many have christened "Montezuma's Revenge."

This time I was struggling with the temperamental lock on my townhouse door. I finally got the thing opened and shoved two cases of forensics teaching materials inside the door, just as a voice came over the answering machine.

"Hey, it's me. Just wanted to let you know Anna's finalized arrangements for the Classic. And Grandma's confirmed she's coming. Hope you had a good time at the conference. Love you!"

I smiled. Dominique. A quick glance at the clock showed it was 6:30. Catherine and I were meeting at 8 to take Lindsey for a quick dinner before the start of shift, so I had enough time. Quickly I crossed the floor and dialed Dominique's number.

It rang a couple of times before I heard a "Hello?" that was nearly drowned by shrill barking.

"Hey, Dom, it's me." I winced as more yapping came through the receiver.

"Hold on, just a second." There was a muffled "Maggie!" Then, more clearly, "Sorry about that."

"Let me guess, it's raining?"

Dominique's voice sounded disgusted. "How did you ever guess?" Her high-strung sheltie had a general hatred of rain, wind, thunder, and pretty much every other weather disturbance, and would make her displeasure known to everyone within a ten block radius when any of the above occurred. "And the reason you haven't used that dog for a linear regression yet is what exactly?"

"Well for one thing, your grandmother loves her to death." Maggie drowned out Dominique's response. "I just got your message."

"That was quick."

"I was unlocking my door as you left it. So what time do you get here?"

"9:30 on the morning of the 18th and then we fly out of Vegas at 4:00 on the afternoon of the 24th," she recited.

"Think you'll have time to stop by for breakfast?" I asked.

Dominique's tone was playfully suspicious. "You aren't making grasshopper omelets again, are you?"

"Hey – you're the one who said you needed extra protein during training," I scolded lightly. "Here I'm trying to be nice and all you can do is complain about my cooking."

"Uh, that is not cooking."

I was attempting to ask Dominique what she _would_ enjoy for breakfast when Maggie's shrill yaps came through the receiver again, cutting me off. Dominique's voice was remarkably patient as she said, "Could you hold on a minute?"

"Sure." A second later there was a muffled thud, then silence.

Dominique came back on the line. "Sorry. What were you saying?"

"What was that?" I asked.

"A soft-cover edition of Jane Eyre landing two feet from Maggie's backside. She'll be quiet now."

I just burst out laughing.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Lindsey Simona Willows – you are the most charming advertising executive I have ever had the pleasure of meeting."

It was a couple of hours later and Catherine and I were sitting in Guido's Pizza, being regaled with the commercials Lindsey had written to be read over her school's intercom system.

The nine-year-old blushed slightly at my remark. "Really?"

"Really," I told her. "I look forward to the day you're in charge of network advertisements – I won't have to pull out a book during commercials anymore."

"Wow," Catherine said smiling. "what do you say to that, Linds?"

"Thank you," she squeaked. I smiled at her.

"You're welcome."

Lindsey took another bite of pizza and studied me thoughtfully while she chewed, as though contemplating an issue of importance. Then she asked, "Uncle Gil?"

"Yes?" I replied. Although Catherine ahs taught her daughter to address most of the staff at the crime lab with the respectful 'Mr.' or 'Mrs.,' Nick, Warrick, and I all share the title of 'Uncle' – the reward of being part of Lindsey's life for as long as she can remember.

"Are you related to Dominique Grissom?"

Her tone was the innocent one of a child still unused to unrelated individuals sharing the same name. it was a stage I remember fondly from my own childhood. But this time, I felt my stomach clench tightly.

"Where did you hear that name?"

I tried to keep my voice normal, and I apparently succeeded, because Lindsey didn't seem bothered by my reaction.

"In _International Gymnast_. She was listed in the Level 10 Nationals results from a back issue I bought."

I'd forgotten Catherine telling me about her daughter's new interest in gymnastics, or I would have been more prepared for the question. Instead I'd been startled enough for my long-time co-worker to notice, even if her daughter didn't."

I avoided Catherine's gaze as well as Lindsey's, concentrating on cutting my pizza. In as controlled of voice as I could manage, I said, "Dominique is my daughter."

TBC.


	2. Chapter 2

Lindsey put down the bite of pizza she'd just speared and focused her expressive blue eyes on me. "I didn't know you had a daughter, Uncle Gil."

"That's because she's lived in California for the last two years so she can train in gymnastics," I replied, still not looking at Catherine or Lindsey.

"What about her mom?" Lindsey asked. "Does she live in California too?"

"No, Dominique's mother died a couple of years ago. She lives with her grandmother. My mom."

"Linds – I think Uncle Gil might not want to talk about this too much," Catherine interjected quickly "Kind of like when Mommy doesn't like talking about her divorce all the time. Why don't we talk about something else?"

"Okay, Mommy." Lindsey turned to me. "I'm sorry, Uncle Gil."

"That's all right, Lindsey," I reassured her. "And I'll tell you what. When I talk to Dominique, I'll ask her to send me a signed photo for you. How does that sound?"

Lindsey's eyes lit up. "Great!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thankfully we'd driven in separate vehicles, so I got a reprieve. Back at CSI I avoided Catherine until the rest of the team arrived, then sent her and Nick out on a home invasion on the north side while Holly and I worked a homicide over at the Watertown. I knew it was a temporary solution, but I'd take what I could get.

Holly's performance at the crime scene helped to distract me for a little while. She'd truly blossomed during her first year at CSI and in many ways had become like a second daughter for me. Gone was the quiet, hesitant young woman who'd walked into my office almost a year earlier. In her place was a spunky CSI – full of enthusiasm and with a lively sense of humor.

This time around we had a victim who'd been stabbed several times in the back – but whose actual cause of death was from a bullet to the head. The first thing out of Holly's mouth was, "Whoa – blue and green. Is this some kind of psycho we're dealing with or did our victim just take to long to die?"

I just grinned. The blue and green reference to the victim's injuries was not an official department code. Holly is synesthetic and sees causes of death – as well as letters, numbers, music, and some types of emotion and pain in color. For her, gunshots are green and stabbings are blue. We'd found this out by accident a few months ago when the whole team was working the scene of an explosion. Nick had noticed Holly closing her eyes a few times at the scene and when he asked if she was okay and she'd replied that she was feeling bombarded. I'd overheard her response and was about to suggest she recuse her elf when she clarified that she was being bombarded by color as a result of the multiple injuries.

After we understood what was going on, I reassigned her from shooting and sketching to bagging individual pieces of evidence that had already been photographed. Later, on the way back to the lab, Nick and I had brought up the topic again. Holly responded freely and was very in patient in regards to our questions, even when Nick expressed a persistent confusion in why stabbings weren't red on account of all the blood. Her only moment of frustration with the topic came a few days later, when Greg – playing on the words of a popular equine saying – asked Holly about a crime of a different color.

This time, with only one body, Holly had no difficulties and we finished working the scene without incident. But when we arrived back at the lab, Catherine was waiting by my office leaning against the wall. She informed me that she and Nick had closed their home invasion and asked if she could talk to me privately.

For a moment I seriously considered declining. I knew darn well what she wanted to talk to me about and that it sure wasn't work related. But I also knew Catherine. There was no way she was going to just simply let this go.

So I said "Sure," told Holly to start cataloguing the evidence and gestured for Catherine to follow me into my office.

After we were both seated, and the door was closed behind us, there was a moment of silence, before Catherine said, "Well, now that you've tried to avoid me all evening, is there something you want to tell me?"

"Yeah, our case was a real weird one this time." Stupid thing to say – I knew that, but I went ahead anyway. "Guy stabbed multiple times in the back – then shot once in the head. Crazy, huh? Should be really interesting to solve this one. How was yours?"

"Well let's see. My suspect didn't surprise me by telling me had a teenaged daughter I'd never heard of."

Her emphasis on the word 'suspect' made me wince. I was already having some serious regrets – although I'm afraid they had more to do with what I had said at the diner than what I hadn't said during the last fifteen years. That and the fact that I should have assigned Catherine to the more difficult case, which might have delayed this conversation longer.

"I don't even know where to begin, Grissom. I find out that you were married – and not only that, you've been married for almost the entire time we've worked together and that you never told me or anyone else at the lab about that. Not only that, but you also have a fifteen-year-old daughter who you've never mentioned at any point in her lifetime. And if that's not enough, you somehow have managed to conceal the fact that you're also widow – which means for some reason an entire lab of detail-oriented professional investigators failed to notice you taking time off for a funeral or any signs we had a co-worker who was grieving." Catherine paused and thought about what she'd just said. "Then again, maybe I don't want to know how we missed that."

"You didn't miss it." I sounded as tired as I felt. 15 years plus of keeping a secret made telling any part of it emotionally exhausting.

"Ashleigh and I divorced around the time Dominique was born – the year before you came to the lab."

"And Dominique went to live with her mother? Is that why you never mentioned her?"

I so did not want to be having this conversation. "No, I had custody." Catherine didn't say anything to that, just looked at me expectantly, giving me an idea of what the suspects she interrogates go through. I sighed. "I guess the topic never came up."

"Never came up?" I'd never heard Catherine sound so mad. "Gil, I know you're not the most open creature on the planet, but for crying out loud, we've been friends for fourteen years. How can you not trust me enough to let the topic of your daughter _ come up_?"

There was a hurt note in her voice too, and maybe if I'd been less emotionally volatile at that moment, I'd have registered it and responded accordingly. Instead I snapped.

"All right, Catherine. You want to know the whole story – here it is. My ex-wife died May 21, 1999, by lethal injection. She was executed by the state after trying to kill a criminalist from this lab 14 years earlier. She put arsenic in his coffee and don't even ask me why?"

I could hear my voice shaking as I continued, "The guy collapsed in the hallway, maybe fifteen feet from this office. Was in a coma for four days. Four days!"

Catherine might have gasped at that point. I have a hazy impression of hearing that, but at that moment I wasn't really registering Catherine's presence enough to know for sure. I do remember feeling my hear trace at that point and the sudden feeling that any breath I drew wasn't nearly deep enough to slow it down.

"Now I can come into the lab and nobody thinks about what happened. But I can't bring Dominique in. "I was really struggling to keep my voice level on that one. "I so much as mention her name and they remember the whole thing. The victim, the killer, and the baby that was born two weeks after the trial."

Crap. I knew Catherine could hear in my voice that I was on the verge of crying. Quickly I rushed ahead with the last few sentences before she could ask me any well-meaning but emotionally-decimating questions.

"I got the call during a crime scene and I went straight to the hospital. 24 hours later id rove home with my one-day –old daughter in a car seat at the same time a van drove my ex-wife back to Death Row." I struggled through another breath and it was all I could do to make my voice audible as I added, "Do you have any other questions?"

"No." Catherine's whisper caused me to cognitively register her face for the first time since I'd started talking. "No, I don't."

Then I did something I'd never done during my entire year as Graveyard Shift Supervisor. I stood up and walked out of the door as a co-worker sat frozen in my office.

TBC

**A/N: I'm also synesthetic, which is where I got the idea of including this. I don't see injuries in color – but I do see gymnastics skills that way and have heard of other people who see pain in color. Also, this is in no way meant to reflect on the information we received on Warrick last week. I came up with this idea early into the summer and just hadn't had a chance to post it.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Here it is, the conclusion, and my apologies this has taken so long. I've been tied up the last month-and-a-half with work, a course I was taking, and helping my mom (a widow) get ready for her wedding.**

**Re: the note about not getting the death penalty for attempted murder – that's true, but isn't there an exception made if the person they tried to kill was in law enforcement? I thought I heard or read that somewhere. I may be making another error in this chapter as I'm not sure when a baby goes for their first immunizations. I apologize in advance.**

**Anyway, at long last, Part 3.**

**OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

The first thing I did when I got out of there was bolt for the men's washroom and splash my face with cold water, taking a moment to gulp several swallows from the faucet in the process.

"Grissom?" The shock of Nick's voice behind me just about plastered me into the mirror.

"Are you okay? You look kind of pale."

For a second I was thrust back into a courtroom. They'd said that to me at the trial, too. Several people – more than once.

_Stop it! _I took a deep breath. "I'm find, Nick."

"You sure?" Nick gave me a little grin. "Warrick didn't pass that stupid bug of his on to you too, did he?"

I managed a smile, too. Well, in the mirror it looked more like a cadaver's death grimace. _Argh. Bad choice of comparisons, Gil._ "No."

Nick snorted. "Consider yourself lucky." He tugged open the door. "I so owe that guy.

I followed him out and headed over to the layout room where I spent the next hour-and-a-half keeping Holly too busy looking at the evidence to notice anything about my appearance, another few hours processing a strangling victim that had been dredged up from Lake Mead, and the hour after that keeping Doc Robbins talking about the angles of the knife wounds. Finally I was out of there, home on my pathetic excuse for a couch with a mug of hot tea in one hand, a photo album in the other, and Allwyn's _Lyra Angelica_ playing in the background.

I opened the album and smiled at the image. Dominique in my arms, the day after she was born. My mother had taken the photo.

Another photo a few weeks later, of Domi in her carseat the day I took her to the doctors for her first immunizations. One of the nice things about working graveyards was that I had almost no problems when it came to scheduling doctors' appointments. Unfortunately, that also meant I had no excuse to avoid seeing the look on my child's face that day.

1986

"Dominique Grissom?"

I looked up from where I'd been staring transfixed at the almost infitismal pink fingernails resting lightly against my palm. Six weeks as a father and they still obliterated the rest of the world from existence.

"Hello, Doctor."

Dr. Burdette returned my smile before focusing her eyes on the little angel resting in my arms. "How's she doing?"

"Ten fingers, ten toes, perfectly pitched cry, and she could pick out her papa's face and voice within her first 72 hours," I proudly replied.

The pediatrician chuckled. "Spoken like a true, objective father," she said. "And would I be correct in assuming her muscular coordination is far more advanced when compared to other babies her age?"

"You would," I confirmed, smiling back.

"Splendid. Why don't you set her down on the table and I'll listen to her heart and lungs."

"Believe me, doctor, I can attest that her lungs are in perfect working order," I told her. "And that's not just parental pride talking."

We both laughed. "Ah, she's been trying out her voicebox, has she?"

The tarantulas recovering from post traumatic stress disorder in my office would have another phrase for it, but I just answered, "Oh, yes." Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.

Dr. Burdette finished listening to Domi's heart and lungs, then handed her back to me. Domi sat on my lap, staring wide-eyed as the doctor filled a syringe, and offered a sunny smile as she approached. The doctor grimaced. "Sorry about this, sweetheart," she said softly, as s he swabbed Dominique's little arm just below her shoulder. And sorry, Gil."

"What?" Before Dr. Burdette could answer, the most horrible sound I'd ever heard split the air. A second later, Dominique turned a pair of anguished eyes towards me and my insides reeled.

"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry," I gasped out, quickly pulling her into an embrace against my shoulder. She continued to cry, every sob feeling like a stab from a knife. _Dad, you knew this was going to hurt and you let it happen to me anyway! _Dr. Burdette glanced at me sympathetically.

"Feels horrible, doesn't it?"

Horrible? No, watching a killer walk due to lack of evidence feels horrible. This… I looked up at the doctor, panic-stricken. "Do you ever get used to it?"

2001

The answer was, "No." Before we left for the next time a few months later, I sat Dominique in her high chair and read her 20 pages of articles explaining the reasons for immunization and how the pain in the doctor's office would spare her from worse in later years. She accepted my explanation calmly and I drove her to the doctor's office feeling marginally better. Until the doctor pierced her arm with the spike again and Dominique again fixed me with her expression of betrayal. Once again we both walked out of the clinic in tears, and I spent a week murmuring apologies every time I looked at her.

It was around that time that a friend of mine told me his wife Catherine would be starting work at the lab and asked me to watch her back. I became a de-facto 'older brother,' surreptitiously keeping aware of which cases she was assigned to and a general watch on how she was doing.

I turned the pages of the album, and smiled. Dominique, a year old and fast asleep on my neighbor's couch. Al librarian at the university had approached me while I was doing research one evening, Domi fast asleep in her stroller next to me. As we got talking, I realized she lived in the apartment down the hall from me with her husband, a pastor. She offered to babysit and Domi spent several nights peacefully sleeping alongside their infant twins while I was working.

Age 3, smiling and singing with her grandmother on a visit to California. Because I'd signed as well as spoken to Dominique from the time she was born, she's been essentially bilingual since she first started talking. Several of her floor routines have had sign language incorporated into the choreography.

Nobody at the lab knew of any of these milestones. I'd always been a private person, but when I'd come back after Domi's birth I became a downright introvert. In hopes of getting everyone at the lab to forget and treat me normally again, I never talked about Ashleigh, Dominique, or really anything pertaining to my personal life. I came in, did my job, and left. It worked, and by the time Dominique was three my home life with my child was firmly compartmentalized from anything related to my work. Including the co-worker who'd become the closest thing I'd ever had to a sister.

Until now. And I realized that whether I liked it or not, it was time to bring at least part of these two compartments together. Taking a deep breath, I reached for the phone and dialed a number.

"Hello, Catherine? It's Gil. Listen, Dominique's going to be competing here in Las Vegas next month. I'v booked the day off to go cheer her on and I was wondering if you and Lindsey would like to come with me."

**THE END**


End file.
